The Amazing Adventures of Archibald Esq.

Archaeological Links Trace Back to Archaic Period

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Ice Age mammals such as the mastodon, wooly mammoth, and peccary were extinct by the beginning of the Archaic period.

Ice Age mammals were eventually replaced by a variety of animals, many of which are still common in the United States today, such as white-tailed deer, raccoon, and possum. Also common were a variety of amphibians, reptiles, fish, and mussels.

The remains of at least four domesticated dogs were buried by Early Archaic people at the Koster site in Illinois is more than 8,000 years ago.

Each dog was laid on its side in a shallow grave and then covered with dirt. The dogs were buried in an area of the village where residents also buried the remains of adults and children.

Recent excavations at the Eneolithic (3600-3100 B.C.) settlement of Botai in north-central Kazakhstan have produced the earliest evidence for many ritual practices that are seen thousands of years later in Bronze Age and Iron Age sites on the steppe and documented in religious texts of those periods.

One of these practices involves the possible sacrifice of at least 15 dogs and placement of their bodies in small pits in or near houses. The deposits, each containing between one and six dogs, were discovered in pithouse foundations or just outside their west walls, possibly in doorways. The close association between dogs and houses may reflect the role of dogs as both secular and spiritual guardians.

The Rig-Veda, written around 1,000 B.C., refers to dogs as the guardians of the gate into the Afterlife — which lay to the west. This belief may have originated with guard dogs being buried under west-facing thresholds.

There is also a strong connection at Botai between dogs and horses, indicated by the placement of up to six horse skulls in dog burials. Botai dogs had the stature and cranial features of the Samoyed breed, which may have originated in this region, although there is no proof that they had a similar long, full coat.

Archaic people in North America, like people elsewhere in the world, developed an extraordinary relationship with wolves. Archaeologists are not sure how, why, or exactly when Native Americans tamed wolves, but the result of this experiment is the domesticated dog (Canis familiaris).

Some of the oldest dogs in North America were found at the Koster site in Greene County, Illinois. At Koster, archaeologists found the graves of four dogs in an Early Archaic settlement. Wood charcoal from one of the graves is 8,500 years old. Each grave contained a nearly complete skeleton of a dog. They were deliberately buried in shallow graves — and given the same treatment residents of the community provided for people who died.

Dogs probably played a key role in the development of hunting techniques used by Archaic people. Importantly, there is no evidence at Koster that dogs themselves were a source of food. And unlike the grave site in Iran, these dogs were buried as members of the community — and not sacrificed to accompany their two-legged companions.

Awoof to Archaic Dogs and their loving Archaic Peoples!

Archibald

Posted 06 Feb 07